By Frank Jordans for Associated Press – BERLIN (AP) — A civil rights group is asking German authorities to issue an arrest warrant for the recently appointed deputy director of the CIA over claims she oversaw the torture of terrorism suspects 15 years ago. The nonprofit European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights submitted a legal brief to German federal prosecutors Tuesday, alleging that Gina Haspel allowed the waterboarding of prisoners at a secret U.S. detention center in Thailand. The prosecutor’s office confirmed Wednesday the complaint had been received and was being reviewed. Similar complaints against senior U.S. officials in the past haven’t resulted in arrest warrants. Advocates describe waterboarding as a form of “enhanced interrogation.” Critics say it amounts to torture, because prisoners are made to feel they are drowning. Haspel was the first female career CIA officer selected to be deputy director in February . The submission by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights — seen by The Associated Press — centers mainly on the case of Abu Zubaydah…
By Lorraine Chow for Eco Watch – “Most of Germany’s coal-fired power stations were not even operating on Sunday, April 30th,” Patrick Graichen of Agora Energiewende told RenewEconomy. “Nuclear power sources, which are planned to be completely phased out by 2022, were also severely reduced.” Graichen added that days like Sunday would be “completely normal” by 2030 thanks to the government’s continued investment in the Energiewende initiative. Following the Fukushima disaster in Japan, Germany announced in May 2011 that it plans to phase out nuclear and shut down all its nuclear power plants by 2022. That Sunday, nuclear power plants reduced their output from 7.9 to 5 gigawatts. Germany’s ambitious energy transition aims for at least an 80 percent share of renewables by 2050, with intermediate targets of 35 to 40 percent share by 2025 and 55 to 60 percent by 2035.
By John Laforge for Counter Punch – Blockaders cover the Front Gate at the Luftwaffe’s Buchel Air Base in Germany, which deploys and trains to use up to 20 U.S. B61 hydrogen bombs on Germany’s Tornado jet fighters. On March 26, nuclear disarmament activists in Germany will launch a 20-week-long series of nonviolent protests at the Luftwaffe’s Büchel Air Base, Germany, demanding the withdrawal of 20 U.S. nuclear weapons still deployed there. The actions will continue through August 9, the anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan in 1945. For the first time in the 20-year-long campaign to rid Büchel of the U.S. bombs…
By Ray McGovern for Consortium News. After a multi-month, politically charged investigation, German intelligence agencies could find no good evidence of Moscow-directed cyber-attacks or a disinformation campaign aimed at subverting the democratic process in Germany. Undaunted, Chancellor Angela Merkel has commissioned a new investigation. President Barack Obama talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G7 Summit at Schloss Elmau in Bavaria, Germany, June 8, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) President Barack Obama talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G7 Summit at Schloss Elmau in Bavaria, Germany, June 8, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) Like the vast majority of Americans malnourished on “mainstream media,” most Germans have been led to believe that, by hacking and “propaganda,” the Kremlin interfered in the recent U.S. election and helped Donald Trump become president.Last year, Berlin’s two main intelligence agencies, the BND and BfV (counterparts of the CIA and FBI) launched a joint investigation to substantiate allegations that Russia was meddling in German political affairs and attempting to shape the outcome of Germany’s elections next September.
By Edward Taylor and Mark Heinrich – A proposal to stop sales of new combustion-engine cars by 2030 has gained cross-party support in Germany’s Bundesrat, the country’s upper house of parliament, Der Spiegel reported. German lawmakers should urge their counterparts in Brussels to push incentives for only zero-emission vehicles to be registered by 2030, the weekly news magazine said, citing a decision taken in a Bundesrat meeting.
By Jon Queally for Common Dreams – Taking aim at both the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and theComprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), European Union deals with the United States and Canada respectively, opponents say the agreements are not really concerned with expanding trade but rather increasing corporate power. “CETA and TTIP threaten environmental and consumer protection for millions of people in Europe and North America,” said Jennifer Morgan, co-executive director of Greenpeace International.
By Staff for DW. “Blockupy” is back, demonstrating against austerity, consumerism, and the plight of refugees in Germany. Supporters could be seen all over Berlin demanding a more egalitarian approach to integration and economic policy. Anti-capitalism protesters of the “Blockupy” movement took to the streets of Berlin on Friday to protest the policies of the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. Although there were 50 arrests and a brief scuffle in which some demonstrators threw rocks at officers, authorities categorized the atmosphere as largely calm. The collective has its origins in Frankfurt in 2012, where protesters began to gather regularly outside the European Central Bank (ECB) and takes its name from the Occupy movement that took place on New York City’s Wall Street.
By Alexandra Sims, Jon Stonem for the Independent. The free trade negotiations between the European Union and the United States have failed, but “nobody is really admitting it”, Germany’s Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has said. Talks over the so-called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, also known as TTIP, have made little progress in recent years. The 14th round of negotiations between American and EU officials took place in Brussels in July. It was the third round in six months. At the time, the talks were thought to be in trouble after a number of leading European politicians expressed concern about TTIP’s effects and the US’s reluctance to accept changes to the proposed deal. In May, cracks emerged when France threatened to block the deal. President Hollande said he would “never accept” the deal in its current guise because of the rules it enforces on France and the rest of Europe – particularly in relation to farming and culture – claiming they are too friendly to US businesses. “We will never accept questioning essential principles for our agriculture, our culture and for the reciprocity of access to public [procurement] markets,” Mr Hollande is reported as saying at a meeting of left-wing politicians in Paris
By Matt Agorist for The Free Thought Project – While NATO is touting this move as training, the Russians are calling it the “summer of provocation,” and a move to reignite the Cold War intended to force Moscow to starve its domestic economy to ramp up its military to meet a growing external threat. Russia is not alone in their assertion either. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Bild am Sonntag newspaper this week that these ostensible ‘war games’ are little more than warmongering.
By DW.com. Around 5,000 peace activists protested the use of the Ramstein facility in southwestern Germany for the US-led drone war. A nine-kilometer (5.5-mile) human chain was later formed to demand limits on the use of the base. Among those taking part in Saturday’s protest was former German Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine, who said the US drone program contravenes international law. He also hit out at the German government’s silence on the use of drones from Ramstein, saying it was “schizophrenic” that Berlin is generous to refugees but then gives its support to wars waged by the US.
By Ben Knight for DW – The German Magistrates Association (DRB) has delivered a slap in the face to the European Union, by coming out against one of the key planks of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – the special courts allowing investors and corporations to sue national governments if their policies happen to threaten their profits. “The DRB sees neither a legal basis nor a need for such a court,” the association said in a statement issued on Wednesday. The judges added that the assumption that foreign investors currently don’t already enjoy “effective judicial protection” has no “factual basis.”
By Staff of Ruptly TV – About 400 protesters gathered despite freezing temperatures in Berlin’s city centre at Wittenbergplatz, Saturday, to show solidarity with Kurdish citizens and their anger with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s current policies towards the Kurdish population. They marched along the famous Kurfuerstendamm shopping mile in the early afternoon. The demonstration lasted for two hours with no incidents to report at the time of writing. Around a dozen police vans and tens of police officers accompanied the protest on foot to block traffic and to intervene with any violations with regard to the right to demonstrate.
By Staff of DW – Police used water cannon and tear gas in the eastern German city’s suburb of Südvorstadt on Saturday as violence erupted during a set of protests by various civil groups against a gathering by 200 neo-Nazis. Authorites said 69 police officers were injured and 50 of their vehicles were damaged. Twenty-three people people were detained until early Sunday. Leipzig prosecutors said they were preparing numerous indictments of seriously breaching the peace.
By Elisabeth Braw for Aljazeera – BERLIN — A German human rights group has filed a criminal complaint against Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, a CIA official who allegedly authorized torture of suspected al Qaeda militants. The complaint, submitted in federal court on Monday, presents proof of Bikowsky’s involvement in the torture of German citizen Khaled El Masri and asks that she be prosecuted in Germany. It also puts Bikowsky, nicknamed the “Queen of Torture,” in the spotlight of European efforts to hold CIA officials accountable for allegations of abuse. In 2003, Macedonian agents, mistaking El Masri for a suspected member of the 9/11 plot, seized the Kuwaiti-born car salesman as he was on his way to Skopje, the capital, for vacation, holding him for 23 days.
By Victor Grossman for Counter Punch – Berlin. It was a day to remember, a date for the record books! It marked a surprising development in German politics! And who said Germans don’t like protest marches or demonstrations? The organizers counted 250,000, a quarter of a million. Of course the police scaled that down – to 150,000. But who’s counting – it was definitely the biggest since 2003 against the Iraq War. It was a protest against the “Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership”, TTIP, and its equally spurned Canadian sister, CETA. Like their US-Pacific clone TPP, both are to be shoved through the JA-vote mill, with little discussion of their contents, or even knowledge of them, after years of top-secret sessions with big biz experts and lobbyists.
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